“So you think you might know about my, umm, my birth mother?” I finally blurted out.
She paused. “Maybe. You see, I grew up in—”
Suddenly I got an earful of long-distance crying.
“I’m sorry, Joseph. My son is upset. He needs something to eat. Can we talk another day?”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll call you back,” I said, speaking loud over the wails, but feeling low. After fourteen years of waiting, I got preempted by a kid with the munchies.
“Mine!”
“Uh-uh, mine!”
What a painful déjà vu. It was a bright warm day and I sat staring at the computer screen that was just as blank as my brain. Sophie and Gina were in the kitchen arguing about whose hiccups were louder. It sounded like they’d been inhaling helium.
“Finish your lunch,” Dad snapped as their pup-squeaks grew more annoying. I could see he was tired of the Mr. Mom Saturday Routine. Finally Sophie and Gina jumped up from the table, ignoring their half-eaten sandwiches and apple slices, and ran outside to play.
I had three more days to finish Version Two of my essay and I still hadn’t figured out what to write. I couldn’t include what I’d learned from Jae because I hadn’t learned a thing. I’d called her back twice and both times I got an answering message with her son singing “Puff the Magic Dragon.”
Forget writer’s block—I had writer’s blockhead. How could I write about anything when I knew something big was about to reveal itself via St. Louis?
Yesterday I’d scribbled a half-page tribute to Nonno Calderaro. I mean, he was a gutsy guy. Dad told me that when Nonno arrived in Manhattan, a French immigrant pulled a knife on him and stole his wallet. He chased the thief in the heat for an hour until he caught him. But I couldn’t fold it into a story that felt like mine. I kept getting hung up on the essay topic: “Your Heritage.”
Next I tried to summarize the history of Korea. But I hadn’t reached the thirteenth century before I got mixed up about who invaded who and what the Mongols had to do with Korea, anyway.
And in a last, lame attempt, I’d typed “A Tribute to a Gold Horn” on top of the page. But all I could think about was Dad’s Mad Meter racing on my birthday, Mom’s malocchio musings, and Sophie starting a Save the Goats campaign. It was stand-up comedy material, but a dark kind of funny that I didn’t want to share.
So far, the computer screen was still blank.
Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking lemonade and eating leftovers. “Want some calamari, Joseph?” he called.
“Thanks, but I prefer my squid straight from the sea to the frying pan.” Mom travels to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, just to get catch-of-the-day squid from the boats off the Raritan Bay, and you can tell. Her fried calamari is the perfect combination of gummy squid and light, crispy batter. But to me, seafood leftovers taste soggy. Mom says she’s turned me into a spoiled calamari connoisseur at an early age.
“What are you working on, Joseph?” Dad called.
“My essay.”
“Which one?”
“For social studies, the ancestry story.” Was he that out of touch? This essay had only started World War III in our house.
“How’s it coming?” he asked as he sprinkled red pepper on his food.
“I might as well be writing instructions for constructing an artificial kneecap.”
He turned his chair to face me. “Why?”
“I don’t know what to write.”
“How about your visit with the Hans? Mom said they shared a lot with you.”
I wanted to give Dad the silent treatment, because he hadn’t been interested in my visit earlier. But then I glanced at him, and I saw this fragile look in his eye, like the beluga whales at Sea World.
So I told him that I used chopsticks at the Hans’ house, and that the food was awesome.
“Kimchi is even hotter than Mom’s jalapeño poppers,” I said. Dad and I are the only ones in the family who can stomach those. They go down your throat like mini-fireballs, but they’re delicious.
I even told Dad what Mr. Han said about people from Pusan.
“They’re straight shooters, huh? You sure fit that description,” he said, laughing. “So why aren’t you writing? Sounds like you’ve got some material to work with.”
I looked outside. Sophie and Gina were seated on the glider swing, squealing as they soared higher and higher. One minute my sisters were ready to kill each other, and the next they were giddy. Kind of like Dad and me.
“Know what, Dad? I think I’m an ethnic sandwich. One hunk of Joseph slapped between a slice of Italian bread and a mound of Korean sticky rice.”